“Sometimes,” guard Tony Wroten said, “another team might joke with us on the court like, ‘Man, are you guys going to stop running?’ They’re serious.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to keep running.”

The 76ers may not win more games than they’ll lose, but they aren’t going to roll over.

Following the lead of first-year coach Brett Brown, the Sixers are running. A lot. They lead the league in possessions per game, rank second in shots both made and attempted, and sit in third in total points scored — all of which are a byproduct of taking the ball and running with it nightly.

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The Sixers (6-9), who next play Wednesday in Orlando, are testing the fitness of opposing teams by pushing the game’s tempo well into the fourth quarter. That’s part of the reason why a nine-man Sixers lineup Saturday was able to stay toe to toe with Eastern Conference heavyweight Indiana for all but the final four minutes.

“Everybody’s invested time, and it’s helped us a lot,” Brown said. “They’ve bought into it in a big way.”

At Monday’s practice, Brown whipped out a piece of paper and reeled off a few players’ names that had been written on it. He then spouted off their fitness stats, the ones the Sixers have monitored since Brown took the job in August: Lavoy Allen is down four pounds and 3 percent body fat; James Anderson: 11 pounds, 3 percent; Evan Turner: 9 pounds, 2.5 percent; Daniel Orton: 13 pounds, 3 percent.

And those are the guys who are actually playing. Jason Richardson and Arnett Moultrie, who have been rehabbing injuries, have dropped 11 and 5 pounds, respectively.

“Sports science is going to take over in a far greater way, in my opinion, in the next eight to 10 years,” Brown said. “It’s going to be like racecars pulling in and you’ve got all of these people working on them, change a tire and, boom, they send them out.

“It’s all about recovery. Playing 82 games, playing back-to-back games, how do you back it up? If you’re on a plane, what are you doing when you’re flying? The people who take care of their bodies, are proud of their diet and nutrition and hydration and massages and ice baths, it’s things all the (NBA) programs do. It’s not like we found anything tricky. We just want to be responsible and proactive with it.”

Sixers swingman Evan Turner has notoriously experienced dropoffs in his career in games when he has no days rest between games, which has spoken to his commitment to conditioning. In the second game of back-to-backs last season, he averaged 12.1 points and 6.0 rebounds in 34 minutes. This season, not only is he able to withstand 37 minutes in the back end of those back-to-back scenarios, but he’s upped his averages to 19 points and 7.5 rebounds.

Turner said playing for a coach like Brown, who does not stand for out-of-shape players, is a motivating factor. That wasn’t always the case in seasons prior, under Doug Collins, Turner said.

“Doug definitely preached and spoke about it, but obviously this guy is cutting people” over it, Turner said. “(Brown) really preaches it and it’s one of the first things he spoke on when we met. … In my first years on back to backs, I was more tired throughout the day, like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to finish this back to back.’ Now, it’s like I’m ready.”

Seventh-year man Spencer Hawes said he’s noticed teams’ penchants for inbounding the ball and slowly setting up pick and rolls in the fourth quarter, a trend that demonstrates players’ fatigue down the stretch. The Sixers, meanwhile, are grabbing defensive rebounds and hustling to the other end of the floor. Brown even chuckled when he was recalling moments from Saturday night’s game against the Pacers, with players on his bench screaming, ‘Run!’ and others waving towels.

“I can compare this to college. In college, you run a lot and do a lot of conditioning,” said Wroten, who played at Washington. “When I first got traded here (from Memphis), I knew it was serious because not only did the coaches call me, but the strength and conditioning coach (Jesse Wright) called me and told me how it was going to be. At the time, you’re like, ‘Whoa, what is this? It’s like college.’

“They say it’s going to pay off in the long run, and it is. You see it at the end of the games. We’re running. We’re outpacing them.”

As long as the Sixers are outworking a team, Brown will accept their effort — win or lose.